Common Crane

Dave and I travelled down to Gloucester on Sunday, on our way to photograph some Hawfinches, and with time on our hands we decided to call in at Slimbridge in the hope of seeing free flying Common Cranes.

Slimbridge on a Bank Holiday Sunday sounds a bit risky and having found the car park nearly full when we arrived, things did not look very promising. Fortunately most people were in the visitors centre or around the captive birds area. We headed for the Martin Smith Hide and had only one other person sharing it with us. After scanning the distant fields we thought we had dipped the cranes but then Dave spotted them about thirty yards from the hide. These are not small birds and I am not sure why it took us so long to find them. Still three birds, two adult and one juvenile was a good start.

A quick check on the project website (The Great Crane Project) enables to you identify the individuals from the colour rings on their legs. The two adults are Willow the male and Buttercup the female. This looks like a new pairing with neither of them having bred before. They usually start to breed at about four years. Willow is four but Buttercup is a 2013 bird so may be a bit young. However whilst we were watching she was having a good go at nest building, in the reeds, in front of the hide.

That leaves the question of who the Juvenile is. It is probaly a 2016 bird and as such could be one of the first chicks born in the wild in this country for about 400 years. It's just a bit odd that it hasn't been caught and ringed yet.

Willow stretching his wings They can have a wingspan of eight feet, even bigger than a White-tailed Eagle

And patrolling the nest building area

There was also a slightly alien looking Little Egret in the pond.

Birding in Kent

A recent trip to stay for a few days in Canterbury gave the opportunity to try birding in some different areas. However, I wasn't very adventurous and ended up visiting a lot of places that I am already familiar with. Cliffe Pools twice, to see the Lesser Yellowlegs which I missed by about ten minutes on both occasions. Stodmarsh and Grove Ferry, where I hardly saw a bird all day, although I did have a fly by from a Marsh Harrier, so close that I had no chance of getting a picture. Folkstone and Dover Cliffs, looking for Ring Ouzels, which was a total waste of time despite all the reported sightings.

In the end it all came down to Dungeness, five Great White Egrets, a Spoonbill, and a small supporting cast. Even here there were some missed opportunities, A Pectoral Sandpiper that kept relocating every time I got near it and a Rare Bird Alert that reported Ring Ouzels within fifty metres of where I was standing but which were gone by the time I got there.

It all sounds a bit depressing but actually I had a great time wandering around the sites. I am just trying to convince the wife that I need to do this more often.

So, pictures taken at a rather drab and over cast Dungeness.

Spoonbill

Little Egret with fish

Great White Egret

Taking to the air - Five to six foot wingspan

Two of the five Great White Egrets present

Bar-tailed Godwit and Curlew Sandpiper

Greenshanks

 and one picture taken at Grove Ferry

Snipe hiding in amongst the Ducks

The most exiting spectacle of the day was a feeding frenzy of about thirty Cormorants on a shoal of fish, with an even larger flock of gulls trying to poach fish out of the Cormorants mouths. I must read up on how to use the video mode on the camera.

Long-billed Dowitcher and other Waders

Sunday morning and I was awake just after 4am. No point staying in bed and I needed a good days birding with real birds instead of butterflies. By 6am I was standing on Butts Lagoon, Pennington Marshes. First in the car park and first on the lagoon. Great except the bird that I had come to see, a Long-billed Dowitcher was nowhere to be seen.

Still it was a lovely morning and there were lots of real birds about so I set off to explore the other lagoons. The first photo opportunity was a Snipe lit up like a beacon by the early morning sun.

There were hundreds of Dunlin across the lagoons with a few Curlew Sandpipers feeding with them.

Juvenile Dunlin

Adults showing black belly patch diagnostic

I was hoping to get the Curlew Sandpiper in flight with the Dunlin but I cannot see one in this picture. Spotting the Curlew Sandpiper was easy against the summer plumage adult Dunlin but there can be some confusion with the Juveniles and in winter plumage I would struggle to tell the difference between the two.

Curlew Sandpiper - moulting from summer to winter plumage

I was told that there was a Little Stint around but I did not manage to see it. There were Ringed Plovers and Little Ringed Plovers at various points across the lagoons. The bird below gave me a few problems. My initial thought was Kentish Plover but you need to look at the more obvious first. Its a juvenile and I think a juvenile Little Ringed Plover but I am not 100% sure.

Juvenile Little Ringed Plover ?

Redshank, Curlew, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper and families of Egrets all gave picture opportunities and there were Turnstones and Sanderling on the foreshore.

Greenshank

Little Egrets

Redshank

 I then had a decision to make. I could see through the binoculars that a number of birders were gathering around Butts Lagoon. Do I go back or do I explore the rest of the marshes first? Then the panic sets in - its sure to be showing now and its going to fly away before I can get back there.

I didn't run but equally I didn't stop for any pictures on the way back. The bird was visible but it was hunkered down in the reeds on an island in the middle of the lagoon. Collins says that shape, action, and plumage suggest a cross between Snipe and Bar-tailed Godwits. For me its actions were much more Snipe like. In all the time I watched it did not move more than a foot from the reeds and when the other birds on the lagoon were spooked into the air it dived straight into the reeds to hide.

Snipe and the Snipe like Long-billed Dowitcher

Picture opportunities were limited. The bird stepped out of the reeds a few times to preen but it did not feed and it did not fly. With no chance of getting closer and with difficulty separating the bird from the reeds in the background it ended up as record shots only.

Staying close to the reeds

Showing barred tail feathers and white back

Facing up to local duck

Barred tail and white back

Long-billed Dowitcher

Perhaps disappointing as far as the pictures go but a great bird to see and a life tick for me.

American Golden Plover

I was up at 5.30 on Wednesday morning, ready to go down to Cuckmere Haven to see the AGP, but rain and poor light helped convince me that the bird would have moved on, so it was back to bed with a cup of tea for a copy of Birdwatch. I was not quite so happy later that day when I read that the AGP was still there and showing well.

Thursday morning and I set off convinced that it would be a wasted journey but not willing to make the same mistake twice. Fortunately the bird, which had been found by Matt Eade, was still showing well and there were only a couple of people around when I arrived. All credit to Matt as I don't think that I could have spotted the difference between this and a Golden Plover, but then I have only ever seen the Golden as a distant flock bird and do not have a close up photograph to compare it with.

American Golden Plover

It's nice to have a photograph to take home so that you can sit down later and really understand the identifying features. So on these pictures I can identify:-

• Four primaries projecting beyond the tertials
• Wing tips projecting beyond the tail-tip
• More white in the supercilium than for a Golden
• Gold spangled on upper parts - but more confined to the upper mantle

I did also see the grey underwing when it stretched its wings but I was a bit slow on getting the photograph.

Showing gold on the upper mantle, projecting primaries and wing tip beyond tail tip

It's not that I don't trust the experts but if I am ever going to learn I have to be convinced that I can make the identification. If you want more details on identification have a look at Matt's blog    -     http://seafordbirding.blogspot.co.uk/     now added to my recommended list on the right.

I stayed watching the bird for about an hour hoping to get a flight picture but with the number of observers gradually increasing I was reminded of why I tend to avoid twitches and decided to move on. The bird did not seem to be phased by the birders, nor by a party of about 40 school children going past less than 20 ft away, but I was. Everyone deserves a chance to see the bird but too many people around takes the bird out of its real environment and takes me away from what I really like in birding. It also spoils the background!

Wandering back to the car I came across this distant view of a Black Swan on the meanders. Unless it has completed a long flight from Australia it will be a bird that has escaped or been released from captivity. So cannot count this one, but who knows what will happen in the future. The BTO has reported that in 2003 there were 43 of these birds at large and that attempts had been made to breed. It may well be added to the list at some time in the future.

I stopped at Arlington Reservoir on the way home to eat my lunch but missed out on the Osprey yet again, it now seems to be settling into an early morning slot for fishing. I then made a quick trip to a local wood to have a look at a Great Spotted Woodpecker's nest. The birds are easy to view but the lighting is poor even on a sunny day. I was quite pleased with these shots given that they are at slow shutter speeds on a 700mm lens set up.

chick with red crown (ISO 640, f7, 1/13sec)

Female feeding  ISO640, f7, 1/15sec)

Male feeding   (ISO 640, f7, 1/25sec)

There were plenty of other birds about. The usual Chaffinch, singing its heart out - balanced on one leg!

Also a Jay, that I ended up stalking for about a quarter of an hour, but it would not come out into the light. This shot could have been so much better with a bit more depth of field and a couple of stops more on the shutter speed.

Jay  (ISO640, f7, 1/25sec) - My missed shot of the week

 

I could have got faster shutter speeds by increasing the ISO, but despite what the camera manufacturers say I think the quality has gone once you get above ISO400, particularly if you are cropping the shot.

And finally in the reed beds a Little Egret, always great to watch.